


a forest of frost

by vesperal



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: (implied) - Freeform, (minor but still), Afterlife, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Death, Gothic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic, Paris (City), Rebirth, Suicidal Thoughts, a lot of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:34:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23295574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vesperal/pseuds/vesperal
Summary: The neon streetlight flickers above Jongdae’s head. It’s late, the time of night that makes even the loud city feel eerily quiet. Honestly, he just wanted to get home. But the man he just asked for directions stares at him with big, unblinking eyes.“You shouldn’t be able to see me.”
Relationships: Kim Jongdae | Chen/Kim Minseok | Xiumin
Comments: 20
Kudos: 51
Collections: SnowSpark Fest Round One





	a forest of frost

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt no. 129
> 
> first of all, i'd like to thank the snowspark fest mods for being so lovely and understanding and putting up with my awful lack of organisation.  
> secondly, i'd like to thank the prompter - whoever you are, i realise that this probably isn't what you expected, but i hope you enjoy it all the same. i had so much fun with this prompt, writing something out of my comfort zone, so thank you for coming up with such a cool idea.  
> finally, i'd like to thank all of my wonderful friends who supported me through the process of writing this. thanks for being such awesome people!
> 
> most of this was written while listening to nct 127's limitless album on repeat, so if you're the kind of person who likes to listen to music while you read i suppose that would be my suggested soundtrack!
> 
> proofread but unbetaed - all mistakes are my own, please be indulgent.  
> enjoy!

Jongdae’s breath puffs out in thick plumes of white vapor in front of him as he hurries up the last few steps of the metro station and onto the street. Decembers in Paris are _miserable_ , far from the fairytale fantasies he’d had in mind when he’d moved here almost six years ago. Instead of pristine snow on rooftops and fairy lights glistening at every window, it’s bitingly cold winds and muddy slush turning the pavement slippery beneath his feet. In fact, it must be colder than usual tonight – the puddles of dirty water have begun to freeze over, reflecting the greenish light of the streetlamps.

The wind howls through the trees, and Jongdae shoves his hands deeper into the pockets of his wool coat, bringing his shoulders up to shield his neck from the cold. A streetlight flickers a few paces in front of him. A shiver runs down his spine, and he tries to tell himself it’s just the cold making him tremble, but, truthfully, he doesn’t feel completely at ease walking along this street so late at night. He’s not quite sure what he’s afraid of, but something about the empty boulevard on his right and the high stone walls of the Père Lachaise cemetery on his left makes him uncomfortable.

The darkness is almost solid, wrapping thick around his limbs like molasses and slowing his progress. By contrast, the light emanating from the sodium bulbs of the streetlamps is weak and faltering, barely illuminating the concrete under his feet. Jongdae frowns. He’s walked along here before, at similar times, and the streetlights have never seemed so dim. He can’t shake the feeling that something is very wrong. He glances behind himself and hastens his pace, almost running by now. He knows he must look stupid, jogging along an empty boulevard in a relatively safe area of the city, but a little voice inside his head pushes him to keep going, _faster, get away_. From what?

Suddenly the faint light of the lamps disappears altogether. For a second, everything is pitch black, darker than it should be on the night of a full moon. Deprived of his sight, Jongdae falters, stumbles, falls. He barely gets his hands out of his pockets in time to catch himself on the pavement, scraping his palms up in the process. His eyes scrunch shut reflexively as he falls, and by the time he opens them again, the all-encompassing darkness is gone. The streetlamps buzz overhead, their greenish light flooding the street. Jongdae can almost convince himself that he imagined the darkness, that his tired mind turned a blink, the thin skin of his eyelids shuttering over his eyes for a fraction of a second, into a paranormal experience.

Shivering, he stands, brushing his hands off on his coat – and freezes. Something very, very strange is happening. He has absolutely no idea where he is. The cemetery wall still looms high on his left, but the street where he lives had been only a few hundred meters in front of him when he had started running, and now there’s no sign of it whatsoever. He tries to shake off the feeling of dread that creeps its way down his spine and turns around to retrace his steps. He must have accidentally run too far in the haze of panic that had taken him over.

A sudden movement in the corner of his eye grabs his attention as he turns, and he tenses up, ready to start running again, before relaxing with a sigh. It’s only a man, around his age, maybe a little younger, sitting on a bench under a plane tree a few feet away. The contrast between the smooth planes of his skin and the mussed texture of his jet-black hair is only intensified by the green filter the lighting casts upon the scene. He’s pretty, Jongdae thinks, but most importantly he’s non-threatening.

“Excuse me,” he starts, approaching the man, trailing off once he turns to look at him, revealing pale grey irises. “Um… I need to get home. Could you, uh – tell me where we are?”

The man tilts his head, eyebrows furrowing, staring straight at Jongdae with big, unblinking eyes. Jongdae expects a murmured excuse, perhaps, maybe some directions if he’s lucky – anything but what he actually says.

“You shouldn’t be able to see me.”

Jongdae’s first instinct is to laugh, a nervous giggle that rattles in his chest and throat like so many chains clinking together. In any other situation, he would have brushed it off, labeled the guy crazy, and walked away. But tonight, after all the strange things that have already happened to him, he can’t shake the feeling that _he’s_ the one who’s slowly going insane.

“W-what do you mean?” he stutters, voice hoarse. The man’s mouth twists up in an annoyed moue.

“Exactly what I just said,” he mutters. “What are you, exactly?”

Jongdae tries his very best to suspend his disbelief. He reasons that he must have knocked his head on the pavement when he tripped, and that he’s unconscious right now, and dreaming all this up.

“Um… I’m… human?”

“You don’t sound too sure,” the man harrumphs, one perfect eyebrow rising up towards his hairline. Jongdae laughs again, the sound just a little too high-pitched and grating to be natural.

“To be honest, I can’t be sure of anything right now,” he forces out between giggles. There’s nothing funny about the situation, but he has to laugh, or he’ll start to cry. “So, what are you?”

The man looks at him like he’s just asked him what two plus two is. “I’m dead,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And maybe it is. After all – it’s the witching hour, they’re right next to a cemetery, and this man does have abnormally pale eyes and skin. Jongdae is starting to feel a little overwhelmed. “So, unless you’re dead too,” the man continues, unphased, “you shouldn’t be able to see me.”

“Unless I’m – what?”

“Dead.” The man replies, deadpan as can be. “Do you have a hearing problem or something?”

Jongdae starts to shake, his giggles dying out as his lungs seem to fill with tar. He’s scared, he doesn’t know what’s happening, he’s starting to realize that this is definitely not just a dream, and the only person he’s met that might help him understand what’s going on is turning out to be unsympathetic to say the least.

“I – I’m sorry,” he stammers, eyes filling up with hot tears despite his best efforts to hold them back. He curls in on himself, shoulders shaking with the effort of stifling his sobs. He just wanted to get home and curl up in bed with a book, out of the cold and away from any danger. But now he can’t be sure he’ll ever get to do that again. He knows, deep down, that home is very, very long way away, further than he could possibly fathom.

The man stands up from the bench, alarm making his eyes go even wider. “I’m sorry,” he says, concern clear in his voice, reaching out touch Jongdae’s shoulder before thinking better of it and stuffing his hand into the pocket of his jeans. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’ve been here a while, and I always forget how strange it is at first when you pass.”

“When you… pass?” Jongdae asks, going rigid. He knows exactly what the man means, but he needs to hear it as explicitly as possible before he even considers believing it.

“When you die. Sorry to break it to you, kid,” he says, shrugging, a wry smile on his face. “Most people don’t remember dying, so it always comes as a surprise when they end up here. You’ll get used to it pretty quickly, though.”

“W – what is this place?” Jongdae asks, trying desperately to wrap his head around what’s happening. He’s 99% sure that, five minutes ago, he was alive. Surely nothing could have happened so quickly, on that empty boulevard, without him having the slightest memory of it?

“A purgatory, of sorts,” the man answers. “For people with unfinished business. Not that any of us have any idea what unfinished business we’re supposed to… y’know, _finish_ before we get to go somewhere less fucking _boring_. Sometimes feels like our names got picked out of a hat at random, to be honest,” he grumbles. “So. Prepare to be bored out of your mind for the next few hundred years, kid. If you’re lucky.”

Jongdae stays silent, still thinking, working through the events of the night in his head as thoroughly as possible, trying to figure out where something, _anything_ , went wrong. His thought process is interrupted, once again, by the man’s lilting tenor.

“What’s your name, by the way?”

“Um… I’m Jongdae,” he answers, surprised at the jarring banality of such a question in such a strange context. The man nods, apparently satisfied.

“I’m Minseok. If you follow me I can take you to meet some more people – or, well, ghosts, I guess – and I can answer your questions along the way.”

Jongdae nods in response, not quite sure of what might come out of his mouth if he opens it. Minseok reaches out to grab Jongdae’s wrist and lead him away from the empty bench, but they’re both stunned into silence when, instead of wrapping securely around Jongdae’s limb, Minseok’s delicate fingers pass straight through it like a hot knife through butter.

Minseok frowns, purses his lips and tries again, outstretched hand reaching for Jongdae’s limp forearm, looking for all the world like he’s expecting it to work – like what just happened was a fluke, some sort of glitch in whatever upside-down parallel universe Jongdae has landed in. But the same thing happens again. Jongdae watches, feeling strangely cold and distant, as Minseok’s hand passes straight through skin and flesh and bone. He doesn’t feel a thing – not even a puff of cold air. He feels detached from his physical self, almost like his mind and body aren’t quite on the same plane of existence anymore.

Minseok’s frown deepens, the light, limpid grey of his eyes darkening to the shade of the sky during a thunderstorm. “This is strange,” he says, and Jongdae can’t help the scoff that escapes him. Minseok eyes flicker up to his, glaring. “Shut up,” he mutters. “I’m still taking you to the others. They might know what’s going on.”

Jongdae shudders. ‘The others’ don’t sound very reassuring. He’d rather not have some sort of undead sect poke and prod at him. But, after all, it’s not like he has much of a choice. So he sighs, breath puffing out of his nostrils like an irate bull.

“Lead the way,” he says, arm sweeping out in a grand gesture. For a second, Minseok looks for all the world like he’s going to stick his tongue out at him, but the moment passes, and he simply turns away and starts walking. Jongdae follows, pulling his coat tight around himself. It almost feels colder here than in the world of the living – not that that’s surprising. So far, life after death seems to be confirming all the stereotypes.

At that exact moment, Minseok turns into the cemetery entrance, and Jongdae bursts out laughing. Of course the ghost headquarters are in a fucking _cemetery_. Minseok turns around to face him, glaring again, but Jongdae can’t stop laughing. It’s high-pitched, hysterical, grating, a release of nervous energy, and it feels so _good_. Jongdae bends over, resting his hands on his thighs as his abdomen begins to ache. Minseok walks over and, with a growl, brings his open palm down on the back of Jongdae’s head with enough force that it would hurt like a bitch, if it actually connected. Of course, it doesn’t – it passes straight through, and Minseok loses his balances and almost topples over, which only makes Jongdae laugh harder.

“Shut the fuck up,” Minseok spits out. “I’m trying to help you.”

“I know,” Jongdae laughs, trying to calm himself down. “And I’m grateful, I promise. It’s just – you meet your dead friends in a cemetery?”

A wry smile graces Minseok’s face. “Ah. I know it seems kind of silly, but there’s a reason for it. We need a certain amount of energy to function properly – to be able to focus, to remember things. Some places have more energy than others. It’s mostly places humans fear and respect. Their awe sort of feeds the magic of a place on the other side, the _human_ side, and it seeps over to here. That’s why we meet in places like cemeteries, churches, the like. I know a few of us who like to meet up in the catacombs.”

Jongdae shudders. “That’s… terrifyingly appropriate.”

“I suppose,” Minseok grins. Jongdae is taken aback, once again, by how damn _pretty_ he is. He never imagined ghosts could be quite so full of life. “I find it kind of tacky, to be honest.”

Jongdae laughs again, but this time it’s normal and sincere and _real_. Minseok is surprisingly funny for someone who’s been dead for… Jongdae has no idea how long, but he imagines it’s been quite a while. He doesn’t dare ask. Minseok offers him one last smile and sets off again, heading towards the center of the cemetery, and Jongdae follows, sobering up quickly as the atmosphere of the place gets to him.

The tombs they pass get bigger and bigger, polished marble reflecting the light of the streetlamps. Some are well cared for, clean and shiny, with fresh bouquets of flowers lying at the foot of the headstones. Others are neglected, overgrown, weeds covering up the stone where names are engraved. Finally, they stop in front of a diminutive white marble mausoleum, with a golden handle carved into the shape of a bird sticking out of the front of it. Minseok reaches out, lays a hand on the twisted metal, and closes his eyes. Jongdae watches, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, as Minseok’s lips move like he’s whispering something under his breath. It doesn’t look like French, or even English, or Korean or Chinese, or any other language Jongdae knows, but it clearly does _something_. The large slab of rock trembles, once, twice – and then slowly begins to move, sliding to one side, seemingly disappearing into thin air.

Minseok turns to look at Jongdae again, and this time his smile seems sharper, almost dangerous. Jongdae shivers, scared and maybe a little turned on.

“Follow me,” Minseok whispers, voice like a dozen snakes hissing at once, and disappears into the darkness of the tomb. Jongdae hesitates, cold terror creeping up his spine and slowing his movements. This is, without a doubt, the most terrifying situation he’s ever been in, but somehow he still feels safe. He has no reason to trust Minseok, a man he only just met, but for some reason he does. So he takes a deep breath, steels himself, and steps into the mausoleum.

The moment his feet clear the door, the slab of marble behind him rumbles back into place. He’s left in almost complete darkness, hands coming up in front of himself to feel for potential obstacles. There’s a faint light pouring into the tomb from a small opening in the roof, and he waits for a minute as his eyes adjust to the darkness. Minseok is nowhere to be seen. Instead, there are steps in front of him, leading down into the depths of the tomb, further into the darkness.

Jongdae shivers. He glances over his shoulder, only to be met with cold, pale marble. There’s no way out. He has only one option – forward. He squares his shoulders, puts an arm out to steady himself against the wall – flinching at the dampness of it – and starts to descend.

The stairs are steep and slippery, covered in a thin layer of slimy moss. Jongdae struggles to keep his footing, one hand grappling at the smooth surface of the stone next to him while the other hovers in front of him, ready to catch himself if he falls. The deeper he goes, the darker it gets, until he can barely see an inch in front of himself.

Suddenly, there’s a loud thumping from somewhere just in front of him, and the whole passage is flooded with a bright, golden light. Jongdae yelps, reeling, and his feet slip out from under him. He goes down hard, ass first onto the hard stone, and bounces down the last couple steps to come to a rest at the bottom, curled up in a pathetic little ball, whimpering as a group of tall, slim figures stare down at him.

The first one to start laughing is the one standing closest to him, but the others follow soon after. He looks up, blinking tears away as his eyeballs are seared by the bright light, and finally recognizes Minseok standing over him, dark hair haloed by golden light and pale eyes twinkling with mirth. His blood goes from cold with fear to hot with something he doesn’t quite recognize, and he begins to tremble as shock settles in.

“What the fuck, Minseok,” he hisses, reaching back to cradle his tender ass. Minseok just keeps laughing, his whole body shaking with it. One of the figures standing behind Minseok steps up and lays a hand on his shoulder.

“Alright, you’ve had your fun now,” he says, voice quiet and authoritative, and Minseok immediately calms down. Jongdae continues to cower on the floor, the pain intensifying now that the balm of adrenaline has worn off.

The tallest figure steps closer to Jongdae and frowns, eyes shining with concern as Jongdae scrambles backwards. “I think you’ve been a little too mean with this one, Min” he says, deep voice rumbling with disapproval. He offers Jongdae a hand and a kind smile, and Jongdae relaxes. It’s hard to be afraid with this gentle giant grinning down at him, big ears sticking out from beneath a mop of messy brown curls. He takes the extended hand to let the tall man pull him up, lips parting to offer his thanks, but the words die in his throat when his hand passes right through the other man’s. _Ah_. He’d forgotten about that.

The taller man spins around, a lot less gentle all of a sudden, and his glare settles on Minseok. “What the fuck, Min,” he spits. “What did you do to him?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Minseok exclaims, bringing his hands up, palms forward. “He was like that when I found him.”

The tension seeps out of the tall man’s shoulder slowly, though a frown still mars his handsome face when he turns back around to face Jongdae. “I’m afraid you’ll have to stand up on your own,” he says, trying to smile. His face is still pinched up in worry, though, so it comes out more like a grimace. Jongdae recognizes the intention all the same, and offers his own smile as he clambers to his feet, wincing at the soreness in his lower half. He glares at Minseok.

“That was _not_ necessary,” he hisses, dusting off his jeans and his coat. Minseok grins.

“It was funny, though.”

“Was not,” Jongdae fires back, resisting the urge to stick out his tongue. Minseok turns towards the men standing behind him.

“What did you guys think?”

“I thought it was hilarious,” one of them says, snickering lightly as he lifts a hand to high five Minseok. He’s a little on the short side, with soft-looking, peach-colored hair that flops down on his forehead as he moves. He has a gentle face, with big, droopy eyes and a mouth pushed out in a perpetual pout, but his eyes are far from gentle, sparkling with mischief.

“Same,” says another. He _definitely_ doesn’t look gentle, with dark eyebrows heavy over even darker eyes, a sharp, straight nose and a small pink mouth, twisted into a smirk. He’s tall, almost as tall as the nice one with the big ears, and thin, and he carries himself with a sort of poise and grace that tells Jongdae he was probably filthy rich in his previous life.

“Baekhyun, Sehun, shut up,” says the commanding one standing behind Minseok. He’s definitely their leader, and Jongdae can see why. The quiet authority in his voice is visible in every one of his features, from his warm brown eyes to his posture, the space between his feet. He turns towards Jongdae, features softening as he smiles.

“I’m Junmyeon. I’d like to welcome you to the other side and apologize for my friend’s actions. Despite having been here the longest out of all of us, he insists on acting like a child,” he says with a glare in Minseok’s direction, and Minseok pouts. Jongdae grins. _Vindication_. He feels like Minseok deserves the scolding, at the very least.

“This is Chanyeol,” Junmyeon continues, pointing at the tall man who had tried to help Jongdae up earlier. “Kyungsoo,” a short, scary-looking man with soft pink lips and big, dark eyes; “Jongin,” quite simply one of the most beautiful men Jongdae has ever seen, bronze skin wrapped around long, lean muscles, high cheekbones and a pretty pout; “and Sehun and Baekhyun,” he finishes, pointing at the two troublemakers. “And you already know Minseok. I’m sure he’s explained what this place is, and why you’re here.”

“Yeah,” Jongdae nods, starting to feel a little more in control. “I’m dead.”

“Actually,” Minseok interrupts, “I’m not so sure about that.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Junmyeon turns towards him, a myriad of questions blooming on his lips. Minseok holds up a finger, and Junmyeon backs down, stunned into silence.

“Let me explain. You saw how Yeol’s hand passed straight through him earlier. It happened to me too. At first, I thought it was just a fluke, that it was because he’s only just arrived, but I’ve been thinking. It didn’t happen to any of us, or to anyone else we know. I think the reason we can’t touch him is because he’s _not_ dead. He must have slipped through a spot where the barrier was too thin, but because he’s still alive, his body is still anchored to the other side, so it can’t manifest fully here.”

Junmyeon frowns, deep in thought. “Nothing like this has ever happened before, though.”

“I know, but it was bound to happen soon. You know as well as I do that the barrier is thinning, Junmyeon. You’ve seen it. We’ve been getting glimpses of the other side. We’ve _seen_ the living. It was only a matter of time before they started to see us.”

Junmyeon’s frown deepens. “So what you’re saying is… you think it’ll happen again? You think he’s just the first?”

Minseok shrugs. “There’s no way of knowing for sure. But what’s to stop it from happening again?”

“ _We_ have to stop it,” Junmyeon says, the muscles in his jaw jumping as he grinds his teeth together. “Who knows what’ll happen if our worlds merge. Nothing good.”

“But how?” Jongin interrupts, eyes wide with worry. “None of us understand this place well enough. We don’t even know why we’re here.”

“We know enough to investigate,” says Minseok, grey eyes flint-like in the lamplight. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Um,” Jongdae says, feeling very out of place, “I don’t suppose any of you know how to get me back?”

Junmyeon and Minseok exchange a look, and Jongdae doesn’t have to know either of them well to understand that it means _I have no fucking idea_.

Minseok is the one who turns away to face Jongdae. “You should stick with us while we investigate. If we find a place where the barrier is thin enough, you might be able to slip back through.”

It’s not very reassuring, but it’s better than nothing, Jongdae supposes. “Fine,” he grumbles. “I don’t wanna be left alone with you, though. You terrify me.”

Minseok throws his head back and bursts out laughing, breaking the tension like a blade cleaving through ice. The others join in hesitantly, until everyone is giggling and an atmosphere of revelry fills the crypt. Jongdae grins, proud of himself.

“Alright then,” says Junmyeon, clapping his hands together. The sound echoes through the crypt long after the last giggles have died out. “We should start by teaming up and investigating the places where we know the barrier has been thinning, places where the magic is strongest. Kyungsoo, Baekhyun and Jongin, go to the Sacré-Coeur. I’ll go to Notre-Dame with Sehun, and Minseok and Chanyeol can go to the Pitié Salpêtrière with Jongdae. Come on, let’s move. We don’t know how quickly the situation is going to get worse, or how bad it’s going to get.”

The other men nod their assent and start making their way out of the crypt in their assigned groups. Jongdae can’t help but be glad that Chanyeol is going to be accompanying him and Minseok. It’s not that he thinks Minseok is a _bad_ person, not at all – after all, he was kind enough to help him when he had no obligation to do so, going as far as taking him to his friends and reassuring him in his own way. It’s just, Minseok is more intimidating than anyone Jongdae has ever met before. He doesn’t know what it is – Minseok certainly isn’t particularly impressive in size and stature, but there’s just something about him, be it the perfect symmetry of his face, the flint-like edge in his ethereal grey eyes, the hint of something darker in his light, melodious voice, that sets Jongdae on edge.

“Alright then!” Chanyeol loops his long, lanky arms around Jongdae and Minseok’s shoulders, pulling them in close to his chest. “Let’s get going!”

The tallest of the trio makes his way up the stairs in front of the other two, long legs allowing him to take the steps three at a time. Jongdae and Minseok follow after him, stopping at the bottom of the stairs when it becomes apparent that neither of them wants to up in front of the other.

“You should go first,” says Jongdae. “I’ll be really slow. I definitely don’t feel comfortable on those stairs, no thanks to you,” he finishes with a glare in Minseok’s direction.

“Yeah, that’s why you should go first,” Minseok retorts. “I can let you know if you’re about to miss a step or something.”

Jongdae’s eyes narrow. “I don’t need your pity,” he hisses, hands curling into fists at his sides.

“It’s not pity.” Minseok rolls his eyes, letting out a long-suffering sigh. “Just stop arguing and go up the damn stairs.”

Jongdae relents, not without sending what he hopes was a truly scathing glare in Minseok’s direction, and starts to make his way up the stairs, carefully taking them one step at a time, hands firmly stuck to the walls. He can feel Minseok’s presence right behind him, and it’s more distracting than reassuring, but deep down he appreciates the sentiment.

Thankfully, he makes it to the top without any more accidents. Chanyeol is waiting for them outside the entrance to the mausoleum, an obnoxious stretching his face.

“What took you two so long?” he inquires, the innuendo clear in his voice, and Jongdae decides he might not like Chanyeol as much as he originally thought. Minseok just shoves him, snorting as his long legs get all tangled up and he almost falls.

“Fine, fine,” Chanyeol says, hands up in the air, doe eyes wide and shiny, the picture of innocence. Minseok just rolls his eyes.

“Let’s get going,” he says, and Chanyeol quiets down and follows as Minseok leads the way out of the cemetery, Jongdae trailing behind.

The walk to the Pitié Salpêtrière hospital is definitely a lot shorter than it should be. It feels like they’ve only been walking for all of ten minutes by the time they arrive in front of the building. Jongdae frowns, and opens his mouth to ask the other two what the hell is going on, but Minseok is faster than him.

“Time works differently here. Don’t worry about it,” he says with a dismissive wave of his hand, leaving Jongdae speechless. _Don’t worry about it_? If only it was that easy.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Chanyeol interrupts, throwing a warning look in their direction. “We’d better get inside.” He walks up to the door and bangs on it so hard Jongdae worries he might break the glass.

“Wait, why are you knocking? Isn’t the place empty?” he asks.

“It used to be,” Chanyeol replies, “but a group of recently-deceased have made it their headquarters, so we can’t just waltz in without permission. The guys who live here are pretty cool though, don’t worry about it.”

Just as he finishes speaking, the glass door slides open, and a young man with a sweet, open face and messy brown hair appears. “Chanyeol!” he exclaims, face breaking into a huge grin. “What are you doing here? Oh, come in, come in!”

“Hey there, Mark,” Chanyeol grins back, reaching out to ruffle the shorter boy’s hair. “I’m afraid we’re here on serious business. Could you take me to Taeyong?” Turning back to Jongdae and Minseok, he adds, “And could you two search the hospital, see if you feel anything unusual?”

Minseok nods, expression morphing into something more serious and determined. “Come on, Jongdae,” he says, reaching out to grab his hand before remembering – he can’t. His hand falls limply to his side, and both of them stare at it for a second. Chanyeol’s receding footsteps echo through the hallway, a fittingly eerie background to this sudden reminder of Jongdae’s situation.

“Anyway,” Minseok mutters, shaking himself out of it. “Let’s go.” Jongdae nods, and follows him through the hospital’s deserted hallways, ice flooding his chest and squeezing his lungs in a vice-like grip. The thought that the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that he’ll be stuck here forever, creeps into his brain and winds its way into his internal monologue like poison ivy creeping its way up a tree to suck the life out of it.

The atmosphere of the empty hospital certainly isn’t helping – it’s cold, and dark, and their footsteps echo on the tiled floor in a way that doesn’t seem quite natural. Jongdae speeds up until he’s trailing right behind Minseok, observing the other out of the corner of his eye, trying to see if Minseok can feel something off about this place, too.

“Something’s not right,” he mutters, and Jongdae nods furiously in agreement. “It’s coming from over here,” Minseok adds, and starts cautiously tip-toeing towards a room to their left. The door is cracked open, and there’s a faint, greenish light coming from inside the room. Jongdae hides behind Minseok as the grey-eyed man gently pushes the door open. It creaks on its hinges, rusty from lack of use – in this universe, at least.

Inside is a bed, old-fashioned and dusty, wrought-iron frame rusty and thin mattress sporting patches of mold. But there’s a shimmer to it, like it’s a mirage – no, like there’s something else there, in that same spot, fighting to replace the old, rusty bed. The translucent shape of a modern hospital bed hovers over the old bed, white sheets mussed and bunched up like there’s someone in it. And there is.

The shape of a thin boy clad in a blue hospital gown flickers in and out of existence. His eyes are closed, skin so pale and paper-thin that his veins are visible underneath it, so skinny that Jongdae can make out the shape of his ribs from under the gown. But he’s not fully _here_ , in the same room as them. It’s just an illusion, just flickering light, but even Jongdae knows it shouldn’t be happening. He turns to Minseok, who is frowning, eyes fixed on the boy in the hospital bed.

“We’ve been catching glimpses of the living more and more often,” he says, slow and solemn like he’s trying to make sense of things as he speaks. His eyebrows are tilted up in the middle, giving him a worried, slightly confused look. Jongdae is well aware that it’s not the right time to be having thoughts like this, but damn it, Minseok is _adorable._

“Come on,” Minseok says, “we should go tell Chanyeol about this. If the barrier is thin enough for us to be able to see the living even in a place with this much history, things must be worse than we thought.”

Jongdae isn’t quite sure what any of this means, but from Minseok’s tone he knows it must be bad, so he follows him back downstairs to where Chanyeol is waiting with Mark and another man Jongdae hasn’t seen before.

“Hello, I’m Taeyong,” the man says, extending a hand to shake Minseok’s and greeting Jongdae with a simple nod. Jongdae assumes Chanyeol must have briefed him about his… situation. “Chanyeol explained what’s going on, and I’m afraid there’s not much I can do to help. I haven’t been here half as long as you guys, after all. But if you need to explore the hospital, you’re welcome to do so anytime. And if you need extra manpower, we’re here too.”

“Thanks, Taeyong,” says Minseok, directing one of those blinding smiles of his at him. Jongdae recognizes the ugly feeling bubbling up in his stomach, and immediately tells it to _go away_. He’s only known Minseok for a few hours – he can’t possibly be jealous. No, the elder can smile at whoever he wants. It’s none of Jongdae’s business.

They leave the hospital soon after that, Jongdae trailing behind Minseok and Chanyeol, who are speaking in hushed whispers, presumably talking about what had happened in the hospital room earlier. Jongdae stays out of their way. He has nothing to add to the conversation, after all, and to be completely honest he needs a little time to think.

He’s realized by now that time works differently here, and that means that a few hours down here could be an entire year on the other side, or vice versa. He wonders if he’s been gone long enough that his friends and parents are starting to worry, wonders if he left anything behind on the street when he disappeared. He thinks about his little apartment, a cramped space on the fifth floor of an old, rundown building, with a leaky roof and a shower that’s barely big enough for him to fit into, and he misses it – the soft yellow color he’d painted the walls, the huge antique bookcase in one corner, stacked with all his favorite books and vinyls, his queen-sized bed with the big stacks of soft, comfortable pillows and blankets.

All he had wanted was to get home, to curl up in that bed with one of those books until he fell asleep, and to wake up in the morning feeling well-rested and refreshed and ready to face a new day. Now he might never get to do that again. He’s been trying to keep it together, but it hasn’t been easy. He feels as if the ground has disappeared from under him, and now he’s free-falling towards – he doesn’t even know what.

They’re the last group to get back to the cemetery. The other five are waiting for them in front of the mausoleum, hunched over something that Junmyeon is carrying.

“What is that?” Chanyeol calls out as soon as they get close enough. Jongdae squints at it, the shape of the object becoming clearer as they get closer. It looks like a book, thick and leather-bound with dry, cracked, yellowing pages. The cover seems to be embossed with strange symbols, narrow and angular. Runes, maybe?

Baekhyun looks up at Chanyeol and grins. “Oh, nothing – just the solution to all our problems,” he laughs. Kyungsoo rolls his eyes and elbows Baekhyun in the stomach, smoothly dodging his answering kick.

“It’s a book,” Kyungsoo says – which, yeah, so far just stating the obvious. “We were in the basement of the Sacré-Coeur and Baekhyun was fucking around – _as usual_ – when he hit something on one of the walls and it revealed a secret chamber of sorts. Anyway, it was mostly full of dust and rat skeletons, but we found this in one corner. Lucky for us, I used to be an archeologist before I died, so I could decipher it. Turns out this place was just an experiment of sorts – whoever pulled this off was dabbling in traveling between parallel universes. Anyway, it’s an impressive bit of magic, but whoever created it must be long dead, and as a result the magic has been weakening ever since. It’s been slow enough that we haven’t noticed until now, but, to make it simple, this place is eventually going to implode. Thankfully, whoever this madman was left instructions on how to reverse his spell and send us all back to where we belong – wherever that is, at this point.”

“Kyungsoo!” Minseok exclaims, shaking with excitement, “That’s amazing! This means Jongdae can go home, and we’re not stuck here anymore!”

Sehun frowns. “Yeah, but who knows where we’ll end up next.”

“Can’t possibly be worse than here,” Jongin snorts. “I know I’m already dead, but I was afraid I might die of boredom if I had to stay here any longer.”

“Well, actually,” Kyungsoo interrupts, wincing. “There’s some bad news too.”

The whole group freezes in anticipation. Jongdae doesn’t think he’s ever heard them be this quiet before.

“The incantation to get rid of this place… it has to be performed during the summer solstice.”

Jongdae’s heart stops as he registers what Kyungsoo just said. The _summer solstice_? It’s December 28th, or at least it was when he fell through, which means the summer solstice is _months_ away. How is he supposed to stay here until then? By the time he gets back, his parents will probably think he’s dead, he’ll have been evicted from his apartment, his friends will have forgotten about him, and he’ll definitely have lost his job. His eyes start to water despite himself. Somewhere deep down, he’d held out hope that he might be able to get home soon. But that hope has been completely crushed, that last little string he was hanging onto has been cut, and now he’s falling.

All of a sudden, he starts to feel sick, and he stumbles back a few steps, away from the others. He doesn’t want them to see him cry, hasn’t known them for long enough to be comfortable letting his guard down around them. So he steps away, as discreetly as he can, settling on the edge of a black marble tomb. He shivers. The stone is cold against his legs, even through the material of his jeans. The tears running down his face are hot though, almost burning in contrast to the cold night air. He buries his face in his hands, holds his breath, tries to stifle his sobs. His whole body shakes with the effort of it, but he stays quiet, and he hopes the others won’t come looking for him.

Of course that’s too much to ask. Only a few seconds later, he feels a presence settle next to him on the tomb. Their breathing is quiet, deep, regular, soothing. Whoever it is doesn’t say anything, just sits there and lets Jongdae cry, lets the emotions he’s been pushing down for the past few hours claw their way out. He shakes and sobs and pulls at his hair and claws at his clothes, and it leaves him feeling raw and exhausted, but better, in some fucked up way. His throat is sore, his vision blurry, his legs frozen and cramping up, but he feels a little less high-strung than he was a few minutes ago.

“You feeling a little better?” the person sitting next to him asks, voice light and smooth and warm and _oh_ , of course it’s Minseok. Out of all the people in the world Jongdae would want to see him cry, Minseok is dead last on that list. Embarrassed, he sniffles and hides his blotchy, tear-stained face in his hands.

“A-a little,” he hiccups, voice nasally from the buildup of mucus and tears in his airways. He feels gross, probably looks gross too, and wishes more than anything that Minseok would just leave him alone.

Unfortunately, Minseok does not get the message, and stays put on the tomb next to him, fiddling with his fingers. He has pretty hands, Jongdae thinks, much like everything else about him. They’re small but strong, delicate but sturdy, with nice oval-shaped nails and prominent veins. Jongdae kind of really wants to hold them, and almost breaks down in tears again when he remembers that’s not possible.

He thinks, even more than the fact that he’s been cut off from everything familiar in his life for the next six months and has no idea what his life is going to be like when he gets back, the worst part of all this – of being stuck here for the foreseeable future with a bunch of dead people, however nice they may be – is that he’s going to be starved of physical contact. That’s something he thrives on, something he _needs_ – the reassurance of someone’s hand in his, patting his back or carding through his hair, of someone’s shoulder pressed flush against his. He thinks that’s what he’ll miss the most. He sighs, heavy with all these unsaid things, these feelings he’s not quite sure Minseok would understand.

“It gets better, you know,” Minseok says, voice barely audible over the sound of the wind howling through the trees and the headstones. Jongdae looks up at him, but Minseok’s gaze is fixed on the ground in front of him. “I can’t say I know exactly how you feel, but it was difficult for me, too, when I got here. I still don’t remember how I died, but I – what I do remember, is how recklessly I lived, how callous I was. I was afraid of showing vulnerability, of telling people I loved them, and in the end I never even got the chance. I’ll always regret that.”

Jongdae stays quiet. He can’t think of anything to say, and he’s not sure Minseok even expects him to speak.

“Sorry,” Minseok laughs, cold and bitter and devoid of any joy whatsoever. “I’m probably not cheering you up much. I’m just trying to say, it was hard for me too, at the beginning. All I wanted was to go back, to apologize to everyone I’d ever wronged, to tell people I loved them and mean it. To be given a second chance, so that I wouldn’t take life for granted. And the others - it was hard for all of us, in different ways, although theirs aren’t my stories to tell. But it gets better, I promise. It takes a while, yes, and sometimes – sometimes I still think about how much I wish I could go back and change everything about myself, about the way I lived my life. But eventually, you come to terms with it. We all do.”

He laughs again, ruffles his hair, stand up. His eyes seem unfocused, staring at something off in the distance, something only he can see.

“Anyway,” he adds, voice a little choked up. “I hope that helps.”

With that, he walks off, leaving Jongdae alone on the cold, hard marble of the tomb. He feels – strange, hollow inside, sad in a deep, indescribable way that makes all of his limbs ache, but at the same time he feels better. No matter how excruciating the next few months will be, no matter how difficult it will be to get back on track once he gets thrown back into the world of the living, he knows that right here, right now, Minseok is here, by his side, and that’s enough for now.

«

From there, slowly but surely, Jongdae starts to get used to the pace of life on this side of the veil. It’s strange, at first, and he struggles a lot in the first few weeks, crying himself to sleep every night, trying to muffle his sobs as much as possible so the others won’t hear them echo around the communal room they all sleep in, nestled underground, below the mausoleum. He wants to go back home, sure, but more than anything else he just wants a _hug_. He had never realized before, how excruciating it can be to live with no physical contact. Every time he reaches out to grab Minseok’s hand, or even to tap one of the others on the shoulder to get their attention, he’s reminded of his situation, and his heart turns to ice in his chest.

But despite the pain, he survives, and things _do_ get better. During the day, Minseok walks with him around Paris, showing him all the quaint little side streets he would have missed if he was still in the world of the living. Everything is so empty, so quiet, and it’s unsettling at first but he soon learns to appreciate it – the lack of tourists, especially. They do run into the occasional dead person, and Minseok always greets them with a cheery smile and a wave, but they’re few and far between.

Visiting the city with Minseok teaches him to appreciate it in a completely new way. Before this, he’d always found the beauty in Paris in its people, more than in the city itself. He had loved the anonymity of living here, of being just another ant in the anthill, so to speak, had loved the cosmopolitan aspect of it all. He had never really considered the existence of a type of beauty that could be inherent to the city itself, hidden in its steep alleys, in the flowers hanging off balconies, in the oxidized bronze of the statues in its parks.

Over the months they spend together, Minseok teaches him to see that beauty, and to love it just as much, if not more, than he had loved the city for its people.

And, in the meantime, Jongdae learns to love Minseok. It starts slowly, the way he remembers it, although he thinks he might have been a little in love with him from the very beginning, from the very first time those icy grey eyes had met his. But as time passes, sometimes slow and sluggish like the stagnant waters of a canal, sometimes rushing past faster than he can blink like mountain rapids, he finds himself falling deeper and deeper.

He learns to see the beauty in the city, and he learns to see the beauty in Minseok’s guarded personality, in the sharp angles of body, in the secrets hidden in the cat-like curve of his eyes and the soft pink of his mouth. From there, Jongdae changes, too – he’s more open with Minseok, tells him things he would never have told another living soul before, drinks his words up like the nectar of life when he speaks. And the more he opens himself up to Minseok, the more Minseok’s presence invades him, until his laugh, the curve of his smile, the scent of his dark hair are lodged in every nook and cranny of Jongdae’s brain.

It hits him suddenly, like a bullet out of nowhere, the realization that he’s in love with Minseok, with a man that he’s never even been able to touch. He’s struggling up the steps to the Sacré Coeur behind the older man, glaring at him as he giggles at Jongdae’s suffering, when the sun peeks out from behind a cloud and illuminates Minseok’s head of dark hair in a halo of golden light. Sunlight is a rare sight on this side of veil, always ephemeral, never quite as warm as on the other side. But the way it illuminates Minseok’s bright smile and reflects off the almost crystalline pallor of his skin is the furthest possible thing from _cold_. The image sears itself into Jongdae’s memory like a cigarette burn on delicate skin.

In that moment, he realizes – he is irrevocably, inescapably, head over heels in love with Minseok. The knowledge feels like a punch to the chest, so sudden that his legs stop working and he almost falls backwards down the hill. Minseok’s expression immediately morphs into one of concern, and he reaches out to Jongdae to steady him.

Of course, his hand passes straight through, and the sweetness of Jongdae’s love curdles inside him like milk going sour.

“I’m – I’m okay,” he murmurs, holding his hands out in a pacifying gesture even though he’s as far from okay as he’s ever been. Minseok gazes at him, questioning, not quite believing him, but drops it. He turns around and starts walking back up the steps, slower this time so that Jongdae can walk beside him.

The atmosphere is heavy with unsaid things, and the mood is somber without Minseok’s giggles to lighten it, but Jongdae is so deep in his thoughts that he barely notices. He _can’t_ be in love with Minseok – he just can’t. He can barely fathom the amount of pain he’ll be in once the summer solstice comes and he’s home safe, especially not when just thinking of it makes his chest feel like it’s being crushed with a sledgehammer.

He’s never even touched Minseok, let alone kissed him. He can’t possibly be in love with him, he rationalizes – it’s just an infatuation, a side effect of being stuck here for so long in Minseok’s company, of being so touch-starved. But deep down, he knows he’s just lying to himself. If he had realized earlier, he might have been able to stop himself from falling further, but it’s too late now. Minseok’s presence is wound tightly around his heartstrings, a knot he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to untangle.

So he follows Minseok up the steps the rest of the way to the Sacré Coeur, and then up the stairs inside the church to the top of the bell tower, and thinks that he would probably follow Minseok just about anywhere.

They can see the whole city from up here – the skyscrapers of La Défense, the Eiffel Tower in all its industrial glory, Notre Dame’s tall spire. Other than these landmarks, most of the buildings fade together in the twilight. It’s yet another thing Jongdae has learned to love about Paris – the buildings are all small, no more than six or seven stories, so that the open sky is always visible, from wherever you are in the city. Up here, right at the top of one of the highest points in the whole city, the sky feels impossibly big, like it could just swallow Jongdae whole at any moment.

It’s terrifying, thinking about how small and insignificant he is in the face of the universe, in the face of however many universes there are. Jongdae feels cold all of a sudden; feels his hands start to shake. But in the next moment Minseok is stepping forward to stand beside him, and his presence calms Jongdae immediately.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it,” Minseok murmurs, gaze lost in the horizon. Jongdae’s eyes linger on the smooth skin of his cheeks, the delicate hollow of his throat, the swell of his lips.

“Yeah. It is,” he whispers back. Minseok smiles, distant and bittersweet, and Jongdae sets his hand down on the stone ledge, as close to Minseok’s as he can get without being reminded of his condition.

Just like that, they breathe, together, and watch the city disappear into the night.

«

It’s funny, how little being in love with Minseok actually changes in Jongdae’s routine. Sure, he spends every waking moment with him, but that was already the case. Sure, he can barely take his eyes off him, but in all fairness, he has never really been able to – Minseok’s beauty is magnetic, drawing his gaze in without him even realizing. And, well, it’s not like Jongdae is ever going to tell him about his feelings. The summer solstice draws nearer and nearer, sometimes at a crawl and sometimes at a sprint, but times passes no matter how much Jongdae occasionally finds himself wishing it wouldn’t.

Eventually, they run out of things to visit in the city. Minseok asks Jongdae if he’d like him to leave him alone, now that he’s shown him around, and Jongdae trips over his words in his haste to tell him that _no_ , he could never get enough of Minseok’s presence. It’s incriminating, the way his voice trembles and his cheeks heat up, but Minseok doesn’t seem to notice.

So Minseok stays by his side, and instead of exploring the city they spend their days ambling around the cemetery, hunting for the strangest headstones and the funniest names. When they run out of tombs, they spend their waking moments laying on their backs in the cold, dewy grass, staring up at the clouds in the sky above and competing to see who can find the most ridiculous shapes up there. (Jongdae usually wins.) And when they get tired of that, they roll over to face each other, and spend their time telling each other stories, sometimes fairytales their parents had told them growing up, sometimes anecdotes about themselves, their families.

Jongdae talks about leaving Korea and coming to Paris as a student, of being terrified, lost and confused at first, of slowly learning to love the city as he learned to love himself. He talks about all the people he’s met, everything he’s learned, updates Minseok on pop culture and tells him about his favorite books, movies, songs. Minseok is less open, holds more back, but he tells him a little about his childhood, about moving around a lot, living in Korea, China, the States, France. He says he came to Paris when he was 16, not knowing how to speak a word of French, so he would spend his days roaming the city, exploring its hidden marvels and mentally mapping out its labyrinth of narrow streets.

When they fall into silence, into contemplation, it’s never uncomfortable. Lying next to Minseok on lush green grass, just listening to his breathing and feeling his presence, Jongdae thinks that he’s never felt quite so serene.

One bright morning in April, while they’re lying there, side by side in the grass, basking in the sun, Jongdae feels his heart swell, for the first time in months, with the urge to sing. He looks over at Minseok, sees him with his head tilted back, face calm and peaceful, eyelashes fanning out on his cheeks, feels that urge, so strong he just can’t resist it. So he sits up, opens his chest and starts singing, something he wrote a couple of years ago, sitting alone in his apartment mourning a broken heart. Minseok’s eyes snap open, but he doesn’t move – he just lies there and listens.

By the time Jongdae is done, there are tears in his eyes, and when he looks over at Minseok his eyes are suspiciously shiny as well.

“You have a beautiful voice,” Minseok whispers, gaze never leaving his.

“Thank you,” Jongdae says, blushing, but he doesn’t look away. There is something swimming in the depths of Minseok’s stormy grey eyes that makes his heart clench, something soft, something warm, something as terrifying as it is exhilarating.

A cloud passes overhead, the sun shines into Minseok’s eyes, he blinks, and that something is gone. But Jongdae knows it was there – he saw it, clear as day, and he _recognized_ it. It scares him, the thought that Minseok might feel the same way – might love Jongdae the way Jongdae loves Minseok. His heart yearns for it, strains out of his chest towards Minseok, craves his attention and his love and his _touch_ , but his brain holds him back, tells him that the more his relationship with Minseok develops the more it’s going to hurt when he leaves.

So, as much as he wants to reach out, to ask, to tell Minseok how he really feels about him, he holds himself back. Jongdae is the first to look away.

They lie back down on the lush, springy grass and watch the clouds float by in silence, together.

«

By the time May arrives, Jongdae is in an almost constant state of self-doubt. He wants to confess to Minseok, wants to tell him how much he loves him, how beautiful he finds him, inside and out, and the best part is he’s starting to think that Minseok might, just maybe, feel the same. But the summer solstice is approaching much faster than he had expected, and he reasons that it’s not worth putting himself out there, offering his fragile, bleeding heart up to Minseok, when whatever happens they’ll be torn apart in less than two months.

So he pushes his feelings down as far as he can, and starts avoiding Minseok. He hangs out with Baekhyun, Sehun and Chanyeol instead, learns about their lives, before and after death. They’re funny, lively, nice to be around, even though Jongdae had been a little scared of Baekhyun at first, of the glimmer of mischief in his eyes. But it turns out Baekhyun rarely bothers to direct that mischief at Jongdae, choosing instead to direct it at Kyungsoo – calm, stoic Kyungsoo, who barely ever reacts to Baekhyun’s teasing, although beneath his stony façade Jongdae notices the glint that sparks in his big, dark eyes when he holds Baekhyun’s full attention.

It’s bittersweet, seeing them interact. He can tell they like each other a lot, from the way Baekhyun can’t seem to shut up about Kyungsoo, from the way Kyungsoo’s gaze lingers on Baekhyun when he thinks no one is looking. He’s happy for them, of course, but he’s also jealous in ways that he can’t even justify. Kyungsoo and Baekhyun don’t know for sure that they’ll end up in the same place when they perform the ritual, but Jongdae does know for sure that he’ll be separated from Minseok. It’s a moot point, really, since no one knows about his feelings for Minseok, especially not the man himself, but he can’t help the way the thought occupies his brain, sour and insidious.

So he starts gravitating towards Jongin, instead, mostly because he’s the only option left – hanging out with Sehun and Chanyeol doesn’t allow him to avoid Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, and Junmyeon still scares him more than a little. But he quickly finds out that Jongin, on top of being one of the most beautiful people he’s ever laid eyes on, is also one of the kindest. He’s guarded and soft-spoken, but he’s always willing to listen, always sweet and gentle in his words and his movements. He’s perfectly content to listen to Jongdae rant about how scared he is of what he’ll have to face when he goes back, to sing with him, to watch the clouds float past with him.

It’s never quite the same as it was with Minseok, though. It’s peaceful, comfortable, but the deep sense of contentedness that Jongdae had experienced when he would spend his days with Minseok is gone.

“Why are you avoiding Min?” Jongin asks, tone light and curious, one day while they’re sitting cross-legged between two tombs, weaving together daisy chains. Jongdae considers denying it, but quickly rejects the idea. Jongin may be quiet and unassuming, but he’s smart and observant. He sighs, and leans back against the side of one of the graves, eyes fluttering shut against the brightness of the May afternoon.

“I’m… scared,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “I suppose I’m just trying to make it hurt a little less when I leave you guys. I’ve gotten… very close with Minseok, lately. I thought it would be best to avoid getting any closer.”

“You love him,” Jongin says, and Jongdae can tell from the certainty in his tone that it’s not a question. He breathes long and deep through his nose, squeezing his eyes shut to ensure they stay bone dry despite the wave of emotions washing over him.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “I do.”

Jongin says nothing – just hums noncommittally and goes back to weaving his daisy chains. Jongdae takes a few more seconds to breathe through the iron fist squeezing his abdomen, and joins him.

When it gets too dark to even see if what they’re picking is daisies or weeds, they stand up, stretching their stiff bodies, before heading back to the mausoleum. There’s a figure waiting outside, leaning back against the marble, arms crossed in front of his chest. The posture would look completely casual, if it weren’t for the way his whole body shakes from the tension in his coiled muscles.

Jongin is the first to recognize him. “Minseok?” he asks, eyes squinting in the darkness. The figure pushes away from the wall, walking over to Jongin and Jongdae. Despite the fact that Jongin was the one who addressed him, Minseok’s eyes don’t leave Jongdae.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” Minseok asks, voice strained, almost pained, eyes cold. Jongdae’s mouth drops open as he fumbles for a believable answer. Jongin sighs beside him.

“I’ll leave you two to talk,” he murmurs, before heading off. The mausoleum door rumbles open and shut, and then Jongdae and Minseok are alone in the darkness.

“Jongdae…” Minseok says, and this time his voice is shaky, almost like he’s about to cry. Jongdae panics, takes a step towards Minseok to comfort him, before he realizes he can’t. It hurts even more in this situation, and he has to blink rapidly to hold his own tears back.

“I don’t know what I did wrong, but I promise I’m sorry,” Minseok says between sniffles. Jongdae can feel his heart splintering in his chest.

“It’s not your fault,” he says, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

“Then whose is it?” Minseok demands, words echoing loudly in the quiet of the cemetery. “I mean, I understand if you got tired of me, if you thought I was coming on too strong, that’s _fine_ but I wish you had told me instead of just leaving me to wonder what I did! When you started – with Jongin, when you two started doing all the things we used to do, that _hurt_ , Jongdae. I thought I was special to you. _You_ made me think I was special to you!”

His words fade out into heavy, oppressive silence as Jongdae struggles to wrap his head around what he’s just heard.

“W – wait,” he stutters, “what do you mean by coming on too strong?”

Even in the darkness, he can see that the fury in Minseok’s gaze would be enough to kill a slightly lesser man.

“Are you fucking stupid, Kim Jongdae?” Minseok spits, voice distorted by rage. “Are you completely obtuse? I’m in _love_ with you, that’s what it means! And I thought, I _deluded_ myself into thinking that _maybe_ you loved me back, but it looks like I was wrong. I guess I’ll leave you alone now, since you clearly want nothing to do me.”

He spins on his heel as his last words fade into a whisper, and starts to walk away. Jongdae is frozen to the spot, paralyzed from the shock of what he’s just heard. But when Minseok’s silhouette starts to fade into the darkness, he shakes himself out of his stupor and dashes after him.

“Minseok!” he yells, but the man in question doesn’t turn around, just keeps walking away, hands rubbing at his face as if he’s wiping away tears. Jongdae catches up, and before he can even think things through he’s reaching out and grabbing Minseok upper arm, forcing him to stop.

“Minseok,” he says, breathless but firm, cupping his face and staring straight into his eyes. “I love you. I wasn’t avoiding you because you were coming on too strong, I was avoiding you because I didn’t know if you felt the same, and I was _afraid_ , afraid of falling any further, of how much it’s going to hurt after the summer solstice. But I _never_ want you to think that I want nothing to do with you. I want to spend my every waking moment with you. I _love_ you.”

With his confession out of the way, he kind of expects Minseok to leap into his arms and reiterate his own love, but the older man only stares at him – or, more accurately, at Jongdae’s hand on his arm, face as pale as a ghost’s.

“Jongdae,” he whispers, and the pure, unadulterated fear in his voice makes Jongdae’s blood turn to ice in his veins. “Your hand… you’re… you’re touching me.”

Jongdae looks down, and sure enough, there it is, his hand on Minseok’s arm, warm, solid flesh against his palm, firm under his grip.

He lets go immediately, takes a couple steps back, trips, falls. Minseok is still looking down at him, terrified.

“What… what does this mean?” Jongdae whispers, eyes wide, mind and heart racing.

“Maybe it’s just a fluke,” Minseok says, but it sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself. “Let’s see if I can pull you up.”

He reaches out to grab Jongdae’s hand, and sure enough, his palm slots itself right against Jongdae’s, fingers intertwining as he pulls him back into a standing position. Jongdae is starting to panic, for real. If the reason he hadn’t been able to touch the others before was that his body wasn’t fully materializing, because he was still alive, does this mean he’s _dead_?

“Minseok,” he whimpers, tears building up in his eyes. “Am I…?” He trails off, but Minseok knows exactly what he means. His eyes are wide with panic and concern, but his voice is firm and determined when he speaks.

“Let’s go find Junmyeon. He’ll know what to do.”

He leads the way back to the mausoleum, Jongdae trailing behind him, dazed and confused, unable to take his eyes off Minseok’s hand gripping his own. The others are all still awake when they reach the chamber, sitting in a circle and laughing together. Jongin is the first to notice them, and a wide smile splits his face in two before he notices their hands. His face turns deathly pale.

“Jongdae,” he whispers, “how is that possible?”

The room turns quiet enough to hear a pin drop, and Jongdae bursts into tears. Minseok is all over him immediately, wrapping him up in his strong arms and rubbing his back comfortingly even as he explains the situation to Junmyeon and Kyungsoo. Jongdae doesn’t hear most of it through his sobs, but when he finally manages to look up he’s met with the sight of Junmyeon frowning.

“I – I don’t really know how to say this, Jongdae, but… if you’re finally materializing properly over here, I think it’s possible that you might have… passed.”

Jongdae buries his head into Minseok’s shoulder again and sobs, whole body shaking with the force of his grief as he mourns the life he’s lost. The room empties as the other men grant them a little privacy, and still Jongdae doesn’t look up, letting Minseok hold him as he cries. He thinks about how he’ll never get to see his family again, about how he never even got to say goodbye to them, about his little apartment, how he’ll never get to spend lazy mornings in his bed with a good book again. He thinks about the unknown, the void that awaits him after the summer solstice, and for the first time, he allows himself to be truly terrified, to shake with grief and fear, to break down.

Minseok stays with him the whole time, lays him down on one of the cots when his legs grow too weak to hold him up, stays next to him and holds his hand and dries his tears and gently shushes him as he lets out all the grief, fear and despair that has built up inside him over the past few months.

Eventually, the tears and sobs come fewer and further between until they stop entirely, although more because he runs out of tears than because he’s actually feeling better. Minseok stays with him still, rubbing his thumb over the back of Jongdae’s hand, brushing his hair out of his face and looking at him with so much emotion in those beautiful grey eyes of his that Jongdae’s heart lightens imperceptibly.

“I’m so sorry, Dae,” Minseok whispers, closing his own eyes as a few tears escape them, clinging to his long, dark lashes before making their way down his pale, drawn face.

“It’s not your fault, Min,” Jongdae sighs, throat raw and voice raspy but firm all the same. “I suppose it was bound to happen eventually, what with me having spent so long here already.”

Minseok hums like he doesn’t quite agree. “Still,” he says, trailing off for a moment to get his thoughts in order before continuing. “I know how hard it is, how much it hurts, to leave without being able to say goodbye. And I can’t imagine how much harder it is for you, having thought you would be able to go back and suddenly finding out you can’t.”

Jongdae laughs, but it’s bitter and dry. “Well… I suppose I’d better get used to the idea now. At least… at least I get to touch you now…” he says, blushing a little as his eyes flutter up to meet Minseok’s. The older man’s face breaks out into a blinding smile.

“Yeah,” he giggles. “Silver lining, I guess.”

Jongdae laughs along with him, and this time it’s a little less sad. The grief still weighs heavy in the pit of his stomach, making him feel vaguely nauseous, but he thinks, as long as Minseok is by his side, he can get through just about anything. Minseok looks down at him like he knows exactly what he’s thinking and grips his hand just a little tighter. Jongdae smiles up at him, still a little teary but open and sincere, and, drained by his breakdown, falls asleep with Minseok watching over him.

«

And, slowly, things go back to the way they were before – mostly, at least. Jongdae and Minseok spend every waking minute together, go back to exploring the city together, to lying down on the grass together in parks, telling each other stories. But it’s fundamentally different, because Jongdae is still surrounded by this aura of sadness, because there’s been this undercurrent of tension between them ever since their confessions were interrupted by Minseok’s realization.

There’s always a certain amount of space between them now, and Jongdae _hates_ it. He realizes that Minseok is just trying to give him space while he sorts through his feelings, while he deals with his grief, but space from Minseok is the last thing he wants right now. The one good thing about this whole ‘finally physically manifesting’ situation is that he gets to touch Minseok, except he actually doesn’t, and for no good reason at all.

He reaches breaking point one sunny morning at the very beginning of June while they’re laying together on a lawn in the Jardin du Luxembourg, sheltered from the sun’s rays under the shade of a tree. He rolls over onto his side to say something to Minseok, and the older man carefully scoots away from him, maintaining a safe distance between them. Jongdae’s heart aches, but more than anything else he feels _angry_. He thought they had made progress that night, when they had confessed to each other, but Minseok seems to be pretending that nothing ever happened.

“Minseok,” he says, desperation clear in his voice. “Why won’t you come closer? Why won’t you touch me? Do you regret what you said? Do - do you not love me anymore?”

Minseok’s face crumples, and he immediately crosses the space between himself and Jongdae to wrap him up in a tight hug.

“Oh, Dae…” he breathes. “I’m so sorry I made you feel that way. I love you, I promise. I just wanted to give you some space… I was afraid touching you might make you sadder…”

“Min, getting to touch you is the only good thing that’s come out of all of this. Please don’t take it away from me.”

Minseok laughs, clear and crystalline in the sweet-smelling air, and squeezes Jongdae tight. “Alright,” he says, smiling fondly down at him. “I promise I won’t.”

Jongdae smiles back at him and reaches up to cup his face. “Good. Now kiss me?”

Minseok turns red and hides his face in Jongdae’s shoulder. “You can’t just say that,” he whines, and Jongdae laughs, loud and long. “Do you really want me to kiss you?” Minseok asks, gaze serious as he lifts his head. Jongdae just nods, not sure that he can form words right now, trying to show all the love he feels for Minseok through his eyes.

It works. Minseok rolls them over until he’s lying on top of Jongdae, pinning him down, and leans in to press their lips together. It starts out chaste, a little dry and a lot sweet, but it soon devolves into something a little more teasing. Minseok’s tongue comes into play, darting out to lap gently at Jongdae’s mouth, and Jongdae opens up eagerly, letting Minseok take control of the kiss.

Minseok’s hand comes up to tangle in Jongdae’s hair as he slots a leg between Jongdae’s thighs, and the kiss turns a little filthy, but it doesn’t go much further than that. Their tongues tangle languidly and they smile into each other’s mouths in the cool shade. Jongdae’s body is alight with warmth, but it’s not an uncomfortable kind of heat – it’s the kind that makes his heart swell, that makes him want to melt against Minseok’s body and become one with him, the kind that makes him want this moment to last forever.

Eventually, they do part – but they stay tangled together, smiling at each other, impossibly fond, occasionally leaning up or down to press soft, close-mouthed kisses to each other’s mouths.

“I love you,” Minseok murmurs, looking down at Jongdae with so much emotion in his eyes that Jongdae thinks he might burst into tears. He smiles, eyes a little shiny.

“I love you too,” he whispers, and Minseok leans down to bury his head in the crook of Jongdae’s neck and giggles, hot breath puffing out against Jongdae’s sensitive skin.

“Why are you laughing?” Jongdae whines, playfully trying to push Minseok off him. The older man clings to him even tighter, wrapping his arms and legs around him like a koala, and they both dissolve into uncontrollable giggles.

They eventually manage to calm down, but Minseok still doesn’t let go. He stays right there, face pressed against Jongdae’s neck, leaving gentle kisses on the sensitive skin there from time to time.

“I wasn’t laughing at you,” he murmurs, so quiet that Jongdae has to strain to hear what he’s saying. “I was laughing because I’m happy. I don’t remember ever having been this happy before.”

He lifts himself up to look Jongdae in the eyes. “Really, Jongdae, you make me happier than I’ve ever been. I’m not good at –” he blushes – “talking about feelings, but you make me want to try. I want to stay here, with you, in this moment, forever. I was laughing because you make my heart so full of joy that I have to let it out somehow or I’m afraid it’ll explode.”

He hides his face again, but Jongdae can feel how much he’s blushing from the heat of it. “Ah, this is embarrassing,” he whines. “I just want you to know how much I love you.”

Jongdae blinks, and a tear escapes and trails down his face. He sniffles, reaches up to wipe it away, rubs his sleeve over his face to dry his eyes. “I love you too, Min. So much. I don’t think I’m capable of saying it as beautifully as you did, but I hope you know how much you mean to me. I already told you, but – I want to spend all my time with you, forever. You make me so happy, you really do,” he manages to get out before breaking down into hiccupping sobs.

Minseok scrambles to cup his face and wipe the tears away with his thumbs. “Oh, don’t cry!” he murmurs, running a soothing hand through Jongdae’s hair as the younger curls into his chest. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he whispers over and over, holding Jongdae tight against his chest until he finally calms down. Minseok gently pulls his face away from his body and leans down to place gentle kisses all over his tear-stained face until Jongdae is giggling and playfully batting him away.

They flop down onto the grass, pressed together from shoulder to hip, hands intertwined. Minseok absentmindedly plays with Jongdae’s fingers while Jongdae watches the leaves of the trees fluttering in the breeze. He’s never felt so content, a heavy, warm feeling that spreads from his heart right down to his toes and the tips of his fingers, making his bones feel dense and heavy.

“Dae,” Minseok whispers, squeezing his hand tight, “I want you to know… I know that it’s scary, not knowing what’s gonna happen after the solstice. But… as long as we’re together, we’ll be okay.”

Jongdae smiles, squeezes his hand back. “Oh, Min,” he murmurs. “I’m not scared of anything, as long as you’re by my side.”

Minseok brings their joint hands up to his lips to leave a soft kiss on Jongdae’s palm, and they let their bodies melt against each other in the warmth of the summer sun.

«

The summer solstice approaches a little too quickly for Jongdae’s tastes. He told Minseok he wasn’t scared, but truthfully he can’t help but feel a little nervous. No matter how ready you think you are, you can never be completely prepared to face the unknown.

At least Minseok is here to distract him – they spend their days in a similar fashion to the way it was before he started avoiding him, except there’s a lot more kissing involved now. They don’t go any further, mainly because this non-religious version of purgatory does not provide lube, but Jongdae is perfectly content with simply getting to feel Minseok’s lips on his whenever he wants. It’s blissful, blissful paradise, no matter how gloomy the world around them seems. Minseok shines brighter than a thousand suns, and his love warms Jongdae up from the inside.

The others joke around and tease them constantly, but deep down Jongdae knows they’re happy for them, so he laughs along with them. He still spends some time with Jongin, when he’s not completely wrapped up in Minseok – he wants to thank him, somehow, for helping him through some of the most difficult times he’s experienced since he arrived. So, from time to time, they sit together and weave daisy chains in comfortable silence, and Jongdae sings to him, and they part at the end of the day with hearts full of warmth and serenity.

Minseok is different – every moment spent with Minseok, whether it’s kissing or just sitting in silence, makes Jongdae’s heart beat faster. He feels comfortable with him, of course, but it’s not the same kind of comfort as he feels with Jongin. Jongin is a calming, genuine presence, someone who will sit and listen and _understand_. Minseok is – Minseok is everything. Minseok is Jongdae’s soulmate, Minseok is everything Jongdae cannot live without.

And that’s why, despite how scared he is, of the unknown, of the void, Minseok calms him. Because he knows, deep down, that Minseok will keep him safe, that Minseok will be with him wherever he goes.

So, the day of the summer solstice, he wakes up strangely calm. The atmosphere inside the mausoleum is heavy, dark, but Jongdae does his best to ignore it. He steps outside to join the others where they’re standing around in a large circle amongst the tombs, and reaches out to grasp Minseok’s hand as soon as he spots him. There’s a lot of people here, most of whom he doesn’t even recognize, and he assumes that everyone living in this ghostly version of Paris has congregated to watch the ritual take place.

Minseok stands close, warm and steady and comforting, and rubs his thumb over the back of Jongdae’s hand as Kyungsoo steps forward, with the old, leather-bound book held out before him, into the center of the circle. He looks up at the grey sky, at the clouds hanging low above them, takes a deep breath, and starts to read.

The language isn’t one Jongdae knows, but he does recognize it – it’s the same language Minseok had spoken on that first day, to open the door of the mausoleum. It sounds old – no, _ancient_ – and powerful, and it sends shivers down Jongdae’s spine as he listens. Kyungsoo’s voice seems to get deeper, raspier, as he recites the spell, until it sounds like several different people are speaking through him. Jongdae grips Minseok’s hand tighter as the sky grows darker and the clouds above them seem to swirl together.

Soon the sky is almost pitch black, the only light coming from the book that Kyungsoo is still holding. Kyungsoo himself doesn’t seem fully there, body tense and trembling, eyes rolled back into his head. The earth starts to shake, and Jongdae closes his eyes and holds Minseok tight as everything outside the circle swirls and fades out of existence. A few seconds later Jongdae feels his own body start to spin. He squeezes his eyes shut as hard as he can, squeezes Minseok’s hand in a death grip, surrenders to the darkness, and _trusts_.

«

When Jongdae wakes up, the first thing he notices is the cold. It immediately strikes him as odd – it’s supposed to be mid-June. But the pavement underneath his prone body is cold and slippery with ice, and his fingers and toes have gone numb from the freezing temperatures.

When he opens his eyes, it’s dark, and he’s alone. He immediately panics. He’s not _supposed_ to be alone, he’s supposed to be with Minseok, he’s supposed to stay with Minseok forever, but here he is, sitting on the frozen pavement, completely on his own.

He stands up, looks around, and feels hot tears fill his eyes as he realizes what’s happening. The walls of the Père Lachaise cemetery loom high behind him, and if he looks over to the left, he can see the flickering streetlight that indicates the entrance to the street where he lives – or where he had lived, nearly six months ago. The air is freezing, and the occasional snowflake floats down from the night sky to land on the pavement. He’s gone right back to where he started – it’s not June, it’s December, he’s not in heaven or anything like that, he’s in real life Paris, and he’s not dead, he’s _alive_. And more importantly, above all that, Minseok is gone.

He feels his heart shatter in his chest, like ice that’s been stepped on, shards of it shooting into every extremity of his tired, frozen body and causing oceans of pain to rise within him. All this time, he had thought that wherever he was going to end up, Minseok would be right there with him, and all this time he was wrong. He’s ended up exactly where he was six months ago before he’d first fallen through the veil, and up until recently, that’s exactly where he had wanted to be. But now, now he wants to be anywhere but here – anywhere where Minseok is, where the older man can hold him and tell him everything is going to be okay.

Barely holding back his tears, Jongdae stumbles towards his building in a daze. He pulls himself up the stairs with frozen hands on the banister, and struggles to fit his key into the lock with his fingers numb from the cold. When he gets inside, it’s cold and dark and so, so empty, and he shrugs his coat off before collapsing onto the bed and letting all the pain erupt out of him.

He cries harder than he’s ever cried before, violent sobs wracking his body, tears flowing down his face and soaking the sheets below. He has never felt this kind of pain, not even when he’d started being able to touch Minseok and thought that he would never be able to come back. And he realizes, it’s because Minseok was there – a balm to soothe his suffering, a warm, loving presence that he will never feel again. All those months of friendship and love and intimacy vaporized like they had never existed in the first place. And, rationally, he thinks that perhaps they never did, that maybe it was all a dream. But the agonizing pain in his chest tells him that it was real, that it was the realest thing he’s ever experienced, and deep down he knows that he will never be able to move on from this pain.

Minseok was the best thing that ever happened to him, and in one night, all of his happiness has been torn away from him, forever.

When he finally runs out of tears, he lets sleep claim him – a restless, dreamless sleep, but sleep nonetheless, and he readily embraces it. The darkness, the nothingness is comforting. It allows him to forget, for a few hours, to stop thinking about Minseok’s smile, his laugh, his voice, his scent, his touch. When he’s awake, that’s all he does – he thinks about Minseok. He thinks about all the things he never had time to tell him, all the things they didn’t have time to share. He lets his grief take over, lets it wash over him like a tidal wave, destroying everything else in its wake.

The next few days pass by in a blur. He sleeps most of the time, and cries whenever he’s awake. He eats and drinks just enough to survive, only getting up to feed himself when his body begins to protest and agonizing stomach cramps distract him from his anguish. He doesn’t know how much time has passed when he finally starts to feel more human, and finally drags himself out of bed to shower and eat a proper meal for the first time in what could be weeks.

His pain hasn’t diminished in the slightest – it’s all encompassing, all he can think about, and sometimes, in the dead of night when sleep evades him and the agony of it all completely overwhelms him, he thinks about taking his own life, about leaving behind the misery and pain of existence, on the off chance that Minseok might be waiting for him wherever his soul ends up. But he ignores the urge, tells himself that Minseok would be disappointed in him, that Minseok would want him to keep living his life, that Minseok would want him to be happy.

That’s impossible right now, but Jongdae can try, he can try to take care of himself. He can make Minseok proud. So he showers and gets dressed, goes out to get groceries and cooks himself a proper meal – just pasta with tomato sauce, but it’s better than nothing. He still feels terribly lonely and sad, but he thinks, if Minseok were watching, he would be happy for him.

That’s what pushes him to start getting back into the rhythm of things. He starts reading again, starts writing lyrics – although they’re all awfully depressing. He learns new recipes, applies for all sorts of jobs, hangs out with his university friend Yixing – and slowly, his life starts to go back to normal.

Of course, nothing will ever be the same. Minseok will always linger in Jongdae’s mind, in Jongdae’s heart. The ghost of Minseok’s presence will follow him wherever he goes. But Jongdae tries his very best to get used to it, to learn to cherish his memories with Minseok, to let them bring him happiness instead of pain.

He knows he will never love anyone, ever again, the way he loved – the way he still loves – Minseok, so he doesn’t start dating again. But he gets out of his apartment, makes new friends, explores the city with the new perspective that Minseok had offered him. And slowly but surely, he gets better.

On a sunny Tuesday afternoon in late June, after a shift at his new job at the little coffee shop just a couple of blocks away from his apartment, Jongdae comes home to a surprise. The door to the apartment next to his, which had been vacant for months, is wide open, and there are stacks of cardboard boxes piled up outside. _Huh_ , he thinks. A new neighbor. He steps up the last few stairs and pokes his head around the door, about to introduce himself – and freezes. There’s something awfully familiar about the man in front of him. He’s facing away from Jongdae, but there’s something about the shape of his body, the muscles in his back, the curve of his waist, that makes Jongdae feel more than a little unsettled.

The man turns around, meets eyes with Jongdae, and Jongdae’s knees almost give out. It’s _Minseok_ – or at least, it’s someone who looks a lot like Minseok. His hair is a lighter color, a dark blonde shade that’s obviously been dyed, and his eyes are a warm, dark brown instead of the icy grey that Minseok’s had been, but the stranger’s face is the same – same cat-shaped eyes, same cheekbones, same plump lower lip, same cute nose. But those eyes of his, as they meet Jongdae’s, are devoid of any spark of recognition, and Jongdae knows, deep down, that this isn’t Minseok.

Then, the man breaks out into a huge, blinding smile, and Jongdae can’t help but smile back. This might not be Minseok, but his mannerisms are the same, and so far, so is his sunny, bright demeanor.

“Hi!” the man says, voice bright and peppy, devoid of the traces of sorrow that Minseok’s voice had carried, but unquestionably the same. “I’m Xiumin – your new neighbor, I assume.”

Jongdae smiles back weakly, and introduces himself. Xiumin extends a hand, and Jongdae shakes it. His grip is strong and firm, and his hands are soft and delicate, so much like Minseok’s that it almost brings tears to his eyes. But he holds steady – this is not Minseok, he tells himself, and it wouldn’t be fair to treat him as if he was. So he plasters on a bright smile, and tells Xiumin that he’s welcome to knock on his door any time. Xiumin smiles, radiant and sweet, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“I’ll take you up on that,” he laughs, and Jongdae feels his smile grow a little wider, a little more genuine.

Later, as Jongdae sits on his bed listening to the sounds of Xiumin moving his stuff around his apartment through the thin walls, he thinks, maybe this is a sign. He thinks, maybe it’s time to let himself be happy. He listens, and he lets go, and he _hopes_.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! if you enjoyed, please don't hesitate to leave a kudos and comment with your thoughts, no matter how short and badly articulated <3
> 
> i'm toying with the idea of writing a happier, perhaps even smutty alternate ending for this, so if you would be interested in that please let me know and i will consider it.
> 
> finally, have a lovely rest of your day/night and please make sure to take care of yourselves in these difficult times! 
> 
> now that reveals are over - feel free to follow me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/nekoyeol) for writing updates!


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